The Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration
XXXVIII Annual Conference

Call for Submissions

Lausanne Switzerland
April 21-24, 2022

News from the SEPI Program Chair about the 2022
Annual Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland

Conference Theme:

Toward a Common Core of Psychotherapy

Current Travel Update – Please be advised that there is a COVID travel advisory for Switzerland, as is the case for most international travel. Travel into both Switzerland and into the US will require a negative COVID test within three days of travel. Please see this link for more:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/switzerland-travel-advisory.html

Also information here: https://ch.usembassy.gov/covid-19-info/

We are monitoring this situation, which is fluid, and will keep you apprised of updates as they become available.

Toward a Common Core of Psychotherapy

SEPI has long been a leader in cultivating integrative visions for psychotherapy. However, as SEPI co-founder Professor Marv Goldfried has noted (Goldfried, 2019), the field of psychotherapy still lacks a clear, consensually agreed upon “common core.” A recent webinar and panel discussion (Goldfried, Henriques, and Smith, 2019) identified four domains that might function to consolidate such a core, framed as problems, processes, mechanisms and principles. This is a hopeful beginning, and we invite practitioners, scholars, and researchers to further explore what a common core might look like in these areas and beyond.

We encourage submissions especially in the following areas:

• Exploring the kinds of problems that bring people into psychotherapy as entrenched maladaptive patterns: Because the institution of medicine remains the primary frame for health services, for a long time, mental health problems have been framed in terms of a disease model. However, psychotherapists have long noted that many psychological problems emerge from maladaptive patterns of coping and reacting to stressors and psychological injuries. We welcome submissions that explore psychological problems framed by vicious, maladaptive cycles and the implications these problems have for diagnosis and conceptualizing. We also invite submissions that focus on other models or frames for describing for the kinds of problems that bring people into therapy.
• Core processes that foster healing: How do people change and what are the healing aspects of relationship processes that foster adaptive change? Many therapies work via the processes of fostering awareness, acceptance, and change. We encourage submissions that provide frames, examples, or research on human change processes in psychotherapy.
• Understanding core mechanisms: Learning constructive new ways of responding to stimuli that have triggered past avoidance or defensive reactivity is central to the core mechanisms of how therapy works. Recent work in cognitive, behavioral, and affective neuroscience on arousal, the role emotions, and the process of narrating experience are shining new light on the mechanisms underlying what integrative therapists have long called “corrective emotional experiences”. We encourage submissions from research, theory, and practice on the mechanisms of change.
• Central principles that guide our work and facilitate adaptive growth and optimal functioning in our clients: Excellent therapists tend to be guided by core principles that inform their work with clients and monitor process. We welcome submissions that elucidate key principles central to cultivating positive therapeutic outcomes.
• Unifying frameworks that can help map the big picture: Recently a fifth pathway to psychotherapy integration was identified (Marquis, et. al, 2021). Joining common factors, technical eclecticism, assimilative integration, and theoretical integration, unification represents a tact of taking a meta-perspective of the field and mapping how the schools of thought that can be understood in relationship to each other. A unified view can be paced in relationship to both advanced expertise in a specific area, and the common core, such that the common core provides the center that frames what students of the field learn, advanced expertise refers to the specialty area and unique perspective of the mature practitioner, and the unified frame maps the larger territory. As such, we welcome submissions that explore unifying visions of the field, as well as any perspectives that explore the relationship between integration and pluralism. For example, there have been some recent calls for a “metamodern sensibility” that affords new ways of synthesizing modernist and postmodern viewpoints into a more coherent integrative pluralism.

PROGRAM FORMAT

We encourage the participation of practitioners and scholars from all psychotherapy traditions and disciplines in our 2022 conference program. The program will consist of pre-conference workshops, panels, structured discussions, mini-workshops, individual papers, and posters. There also will be plenary panels and the SEPI president’s address.

We wish to underscore that:

• SEPI is particularly devoted to facilitating dialogue among participants. As such, all presentations as usual allocate ample time for audience participation and discussion. We realize that this may be more difficult to ensure in the COVID environment but still consider this a quintessential component to SEPI sessions. Consideration of this will be important to all submissions.
• We encourage the use of videotaped sessions, verbatim transcriptions, demonstrations, case presentations, or other methods that ground the dialogue, clarify practical considerations, and demonstrate clinical application. Please be sure to secure the informed consent needed to present any sensitive material to ensure the ethical use of session material. We want to ensure that anything posted online protects the confidentiality of anyone who needs it.

TYPES OF PRESENTATIONS

• PANELS/SYMPOSIA (75 minutes)
  A panel/symposium is a formal presentation that ideally includes three (3) presenters and one (1) discussant, leaving time for audience participation. Each panel online or otherwise will/must have a moderator who will introduce the presenters and topics, monitor time allotments, and guide audience participation.
• STRUCTURED DISCUSSIONS (75 minutes)
  Please note that the moderator of a discussion group is responsible for confirming at least two other individuals’ participation and for organizing all aspects of the presentation. Film, videotape, music, artwork, or other forms of media can also be used to stimulate discussion. It will be important to consider how to facilitate discussion in an online format.
• MINI-WORKSHOPS (75 minutes)
  Mini-workshops are designed primarily for practitioner audiences and focus on skill development or experiential involvement. Preference will be given to workshops that include multiple presenters. A workshop “summary sheet” (overview of the topic) and handouts (if applicable) should be available to participants. A pointed focus is desirable due to the short nature of these workshops. Only a limited number of mini-workshops will be possible during the conference. Due to the fact that mini-workshops are the most competitive format, and the vast majority will not be accepted, we therefore strongly encourage anyone submitting a mini-workshop to consider submitting other types of presentations as well.
• INDIVIDUAL PAPERS (15 minutes)
  This category includes research, theoretical, and clinical papers that are not part of a panel/symposium. The program committee will form accepted papers into panels. However, we strongly recommend that instead of submitting individual papers, you try to create a panel yourself by seeking out other people doing similar work and recruiting a discussant. The likelihood of acceptance is higher for panels than for individual papers. For this purpose, you are encouraged to use the SEPI listserv or Facebook.
• POSTERS
  Posters are graphic representations of the results of studies or tools to help in decision-making. Interested attendees have one-on-one discussions with the presenter whose work is displayed. Poster dimensions should approximate 91 x 122 cm (or 36 x 48 inches). Many attendees appreciate receiving a handout that summarizes a poster’s findings.
• PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS (3 hours)
  Two or perhaps three pre-conference workshops will be scheduled the morning of the first day of the conference to allow participants to learn about a specific approach to integrated psychotherapy. Preference will be given to pre-conference workshops that include multiple presenters. A maximum of three pre-conference workshops will be accepted.

DEADLINES AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• LIMITS ON FIRST AUTHORSHIPS
  There is a limit of two first-author presentations at the conference. A total number of presentations including other forms of participation, such as discussant, moderator, or second authorship, should not exceed five. All presenters will be subject to the usual registration fee for the conference.
• DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS
  The submission deadline will be December 1, 2021. You will be submitting online through the SEPI Conference submission portal. Please go to our website at www.sepiweb.org for submission instructions.The program committee will send notices of acceptance as well as the final format the program will take by January 8, 2022. This should allow you to make travel plans if needed in time.
• CONTINUING EDUCATION AND ATTENDANCE
  Letters of participation and attendance will be provided to all attendees. Continuing Education for psychologists will be provided by an APA-approved CE Sponsor. Only those who pre-register for CE and who pay the CE fee will be provided CE certificates.
• CONFERENCE LANGUAGE
  Please note that presentations must be given in English. Please rest assured that perfect English is NOT a requirement; however, presentations must be understandable to English speakers.We also invite presentations in French. Should you desire to present in French, please contact the program chair, Gregg Henriques, directly at henriqgx@jmu.edu
• REVIEW CRITERIA
  All submissions are rated for rigor (scientific, clinical or theoretical), scope of coverage, relevance to psychotherapy integration, and consistency with the meeting theme. Mini-workshops and pre-conference workshops are additionally rated for presenter qualifications and usefulness of the training objectives. Proposals must be sufficiently detailed to allow evaluation of these criteria.
• TRAVEL AWARDS
  Student travel stipends
  Six student stipends not to exceed $500 each are available to defray costs for students who are presenting at the conference in person. To qualify for a stipend, students must be the first author and be a live presenter of a paper in Lausanne and must be SEPI members. The submission portal provides an opportunity for students to indicate that they are interested in being considered for a travel stipend.Paul L. Wachtel Travel Grants
  Up to two travel grants not to exceed $1000 each are available to support travel to the conference by SEPI members and SEPI fellows. Travel grants will only be given to those who are attending the conference in person, and in real time. Please note that SEPI student members are not eligible for these grants. To apply, please go to the awards section of the SEPI website: https://www.sepiweb.org/page/wachtel_award.

We hope to see you in Lausanne in April 2022!

Gregg Henriques, PhD
SEPI 2022 President and Program Chair

SEPI Program Committee
Alberta Pos, PhD, 2021 SEPI President
Shigeru Iwakabe, PhD, 2020 SEPI President

Ueli Kramer, PhD
SEPI 2022 Chair, Local Organizing Committee

Important Links

SEPI website

SEPI 2022 Submission Portal

Paul Wachtel Travel Grants

CE guidelines for submissions

2022 Program Chair